It’s been a lovely run but it’s time to retire this informal platform. Not that I’ve had an enormous number of readers or anything, but enough people got in touch over the years that it seemed worthwhile to continue. And it helped me make sense of my path and growth as a geographer, from long before I finished my PhD all the way to where I am now. It’s been fun to document the journey. But it’s time draw the…
After conferences, I often write here about lessons learned (like on the 2019 SGM in Fribourg). This weekend, I learned more than usual. This weekend I learned an awful lot. One of my tasks as new VP of the Swiss Association of Geography is to organize the human geography contributions at the annual Swiss Geosciences Meeting. I’ve organized my share of things before but this was a new experience, both in terms of scope and also because our contributions are…
I gave a quick interview to SWI swissinfo.ch on the feasibility of hosting a sustainable Winter Olympics here in Switzerland. The basic idea is to ditch the idea of a host city and go towards something like a host country. One advantage of this would be that you could use only existing infrastructures and eliminate new constructions, which is a great idea. This could only work in smaller and highly developed countries, and especially those with existing, reliable, and high…
Last week I had the pleasure and honor of giving the Eurasian Geography and Economics keynote lecture at the 10th International Urban Geographies of Post-Communist States conference. This year it was in Riga – my first time there. The opening was held in this gorgeous Stalinka that has been mostly de-Sovietized. It was a very fitting venue. This was the 10th edition of the “Cities After Transition” conference – our beloved CATference. In my keynote, I took stock of the…
I feel weird about posting anything on Ex-Twitter nowadays. Truthfully I’m not overly comfortable with most of the self-promotion game, but I’m always grateful when someone else shares their work and even better if they share a bit of the self behind the name. So that’s what I try to do too, even though it feels unnecessarily egotistical. But now, in the death spiral of what used to be Twitter… god. I find it problematic to say the least. I…
Earlier this month I was invited to give a keynote at a symposium in at the Università della Svizzera italiana in Mendrisio, called Marginal urbanities: The hidden face of planetary urbanisation. It was organized by Mosè Cometta and Giulia Scotto, two wonderful scholars who did a great job putting together the program. It was broad enough that we could all learn from each other’s perspectives but small enough to be intimate and personal. A tough balance, that. My keynote focused…
My Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione project has officially begun! I’m now at the ETH Zurich, working with the SPUR group – Spatial Development and Urban Policy. This is a great interdisciplinary team and I am thrilled to be here. The interdisciplinary nature of the group means that I’m returning to a beginner mind in some situations. It’s a great feeling – albeit a little destabilizing sometimes – to encounter entirely new debates in bodies of literature I’ve never even…
It’s out in the world. This piece is the final product of the collaboration I wrote about a little while back, co-written with Olena Denysenko, Dina Krichker, Olga Rebro, and Maria Gunko. In contrast to the abstractions of global headlines, we focus on the micro perspectives of everyday lived experience. One theme running through all of the contributions is a variety of bordering processes that fracture territories, families, and lives. I don’t like being too self-promotional, but I think this…
I had the opportunity to talk about mega-events and (un)sustainability, particularly in context with the upcoming Paris 2024 Games. The journalist, Théo Nepipvoda, gave me plenty of time and space, which is always a nice feeling. I thought that I would be a small contribution to an article, and didn’t know that it would end up as such a large interview, so that’s a pleasant surprise. Click here for the article. Merci Théo pour l’opportunité !
As part of my current project, I’ve just submitted a draft of a new piece called The Intimate and Everyday Geopolitics of the Russian War Against Ukraine. It’s a Forum collection for Geopolitics, and at this point I’m very pleased with it. Writing about the war during the war has not been easy. I gathered four co-authors for the project, two from Ukraine and two from Russia – though this is not at all meant to establish some kind of…